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#1reasonwhy: Geek Gender Meltdowns Happen Regularly, Still Bad For Business

It seems, lately, that the slurry is flowing so fast that one cannot cross the same river (of slurry) twice. In some ways, it’s good that these boils (of slurry – delicious mixed metaphor there) are being somewhat lanced, but by Heaven it makes for awkward conversations sometimes.

People pose in stand during the Paris Games Week at the Parc des Expositions on November 1, 2012 in Paris. (Image credit: AFP/Getty Images via @daylife)

ITEM! Ask a silly question, get a lot of answers

The most recent fun was kicked off by an innocent question, asked by Luke Crane, games project specialist at Kickstarter:

Why are there so few lady game creators?

I asked Crane what he was aiming for by asking the question: he related it to his experience at Kickstarter.

I see a lot of game proposals, perhaps more than anyone else. Since Kickstarter is a platform open to all, regardless of funding or support, I expected to see more balanced submissions gender-wise. This is unfortunately not the case.

The inquiry certainly worked, if by “worked” we mean “unleashed a torrent of heartfelt and/or deeply hacked off responses from women working in or near the games industry”. Just a few of the hits under the hashtag #1reasonwhy, coined early in the discussion by the writer Filamena Young, included:

Because every disclosure of harassment feels like risking never being hired again – Lilian Cohen-Moore (@lilyorit)

Because you have to worry, when you make even one game for women or kids, that you have now lost any credibility in “real” games – Laralyn McWilliams (@laralyn)

Because when I tell the PR rep I want to look at AAA console games, he takes me to the pink Facebook games anyway – Katie Williams (@desensitisation)

When I come home from a professional game dev conf, I have bruises on my arms from men stopping me from walking away from them – Wendy Despain (@subversified)

Of course, pretty soon the hashtag started getting trolled by fearful beta males, then pinged around by social media bots for SEO purposes, but by then others had created #1reasontobe (sc. a woman working in games) and #1reasonmentors (for mentoring contacts – a sort of bottom-up, volunteer Women in Games International). So, something good has come of this. But will it make any difference in the long run? Or indeed the medium run?

Because a company will produce a pink-ified “game for girls”, then point to its failure as proof that women don’t game – Lisa Jonté (@ljonte)

ITEM – Back to those Fake Geek Girls

The concept of the “fake gamer girl” can only exist in a culture built upon inherent distrust of women – Brian Rubinow (@brubinow)

Joe Peacock, whose deeply disspiriting “Booth Babes Need Not Apply” kicked off the last discussion of how to keep geek culture pure of coincidentally female fakes and pose(u)rs, was inspired last week to reexamine his attitudes in part by the extensive criticism he received at the time, but more recently by the response to a similar outburst from the comic book artist Tony Harris on Facebook about female cosplayers at conventions.

The comic book artist Tony Harris was angry that, with a very few exceptions he had personally verified, these women were just there to suck up attention which should rightfully be directed at comic book artists. They did this, apparently, by offering the promise of sexual contact to the ugly, nerdy, socially awkward male geeks who attend conventions, and whom they secretly despise.

I know a few [female cosplayers] who are actually pretty cool-and BIG Shocker, love and read Comics.So as in all things, they are the exception to the rule. Heres the statement I wanna make, based on THE RULE: ”Hey! Quasi-Pretty-NOT-Hot-Girl, you are more pathetic than the REAL Nerds, who YOU secretly think are REALLY PATHETIC. But we are onto you. Some of us are aware that you are ever so average on an everyday basis. But you have a couple of things going your way. You are willing to become almost completely Naked in public, and yer either skinny( Well, some or most of you, THINK you are ) or you have Big Boobies. Notice I didnt say GREAT Boobies? You are what I refer to as “CON-HOT”. Well not by my estimation, but according to a LOT of average Comic Book Fans who either RARELY speak to, or NEVER speak to girls. Some Virgins, ALL unconfident when it comes to girls, and the ONE thing they all have in common? The are being preyed on by YOU.

***

And also, if ANY of these guys that you hang on tried to talk to you out of that Con? You wouldnt give them the f***ing time of day. Shut up you damned liar, no you would not. Lying, Liar Face. Yer not Comics. Your just the thing that all the Comic Book, AND mainstream press flock to at Cons. And the real reason for the Con, and the damned costumes yer parading around in? That would be Comic Book Artists, and Comic Book Writers who make all that s*** up.

Barring the “don’t look at them, look at me!” lament at the end (if you can’t beat them…), this is actually a pretty effective encapsulation of the simmering anxiety that seems to drive much of the antagonism directed at women in fandom – that men might be tricked into being attracted to women who are not as hot as they seem at the time, and who have nothing but contempt for them. To quote myself:

The underlying premise here is that male geeks are so unattractive, indeed so collectively repulsive, that there is a 50% gap between what they will find attractive and the attractiveness standards of any given other human being.

That was in reference to Joe Peacock describing women at conventions as “6 of 9s” – that is, women who in the real world would only be 6s, but to the hideous mutants that he seems to think make up male comic book fandom will seem like visions of near-perfect loveliness. Harris’ “CON-HOT” seems to be a different term for the same self-loathing – describing women who seem attractive only at cons (sc. because the men they are standing next to, in Harris’ opinion, have abnormally low standards, because they are unattractive geeks).

This guilty-until-proven innocent approach to women can be seen in many of the #1reasonwhy posts as well – accounts by female developers and designers of being assumed to be a promotional model, wife or girlfriend or (at best) a member of the art or writing staff abound.

on the grounds that they were delivered in an unguarded (if public) post to Facebook by a “good guy” who was simply venting. However, this is in itself quite a useful place to start.

In this model, if you are a “good guy”, you get to make and state publicly these kinds of judgements, and should not be called to account for them. Women, on the other hand, do not get the same protections. Even if they do not make public statements at all, one can tell what they are thinking, and judge them based on that telepathic insight. It is OK to call women liars (or damned liars, or … ahem… “Lying Liar Face”), but not OK to draw attention to someone calling women liars. Likewise, both Harris and Peacock, after their initial posts and the negative responses thereto, conceded that it was possible that there might be male “posers” also- but somehow that possibility had slipped their mind in the heat of the moment.

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Comments

Laralyn McWilliams’ comment on consumers is one that I feel represents the immaturity of the community. We are not obliged to reward a company for trying to maximize profit, it is not our role in natural selection. For instance if one company spends an extra year bugfixing and one does not, I am going to buy from the company that does the bugfixing even though the other has profits on their mind. It is my obligation and it is more ethical.

Women and children as general demographics are and less tensive to complexity in video games. That is not an opinion. Should a company make a game less complex so that they can diversify their investors I have no reason to reward it because I value complexity.

Interestingly, one of the most popular game franchises among women is The Sims, which has a very different kind of complexity, let’s say, from Medal of Honor

It would be strange to buy a game that didn’t appeal to you, and which you knew you would not enjoy – some people just can’t stand RTSes, say, or Lords Management MOBAs. However, I don’t think Psychonauts is a worse game because Double Fine later released Costume Quest. And, actually, Costume Quest is a good game, in terms of its mechanical and narrative objectives – but if you wanted Final Fantasy XIII, obviously it wouldn’t be a good game _for you_.

I think it’s just that as a society, we haven’t gotten to the point where people are comfortable thinking that women can think on the same lines as men can, which is unfortunate. There are a few instances where men (especially from the older generations) will talk to my husband over me just because he’s male. This particularly happens in male dominated industries such as auto parts, moving services (clerk didn’t even acknowledge my existence), video gaming, engineering, & science.

I mean consider the fact that the U.S. has never even had a female Vice President let along a President, while other countries have had female prime ministers for a long part of their history. It seems it is a very puritanical view that the U.S. has. It’s the Madonna/whore complex that we can’t get away from.

Another example, I bought a black 3DS and I kept getting “why didn’t you buy the pink one?” Because I like the color black! No one would ask a guy, “why didn’t you get the pink 3DS?” WTF?! But again, these are social norms pressed upon us. How many people do you know would freak out if their sons played with Barbies and their daughters played with toy guns? This is the same @#$%.

Also, with the discussion of Cosplay. If dudes dressed like sexy guys in Cosplay, they would be made fun of by other guys or considered gay. This is the opposing standard that men live in as well. It’s not fair to either sex that they be criticized for opposing standards. Again, this is a result of society and not because gaming is different than any other medium.

There seems to be an unspoken false dichotomy here, that either there is no such thing as a fake geek (m/f) or the place is overrun with them. Could we look at it from another perspective? Let’s say you’re a fake geek. If you’re a guy, you could cosplay but the only way that’d get you much attention is if you showed abs. A lot more effort to acquire than genuinely getting into the fandom. So most fake geek guys (shudder gasp those exist trying to pick up women at cons too) learn a few trivial facts in the hopes whoever they target won’t pick up on their general ignorance. It’s much simpler for a fake geek girl. They show a lot of skin. Men will look at a woman baring skin regardless of what kind of person she is, in con or out. This sadly gets genuine cosplayers, who worked hard on their costumes because they love the fandom, tarred with the same brush. Rather than judging someone simply by what they wear, it’s better form in my opinion to watch their eyes. If they look at the merch, they’re probably genuine. If they’re looking at other people, trying to catch their eye and standing in grossly uncomfortable but flattering positions, odds are they’re fake.